How do they come up with bullet weights?

Scorch nailed it . . .

I think Scorch nailed it in post #15. That makes the most sense and is clearly the logical explanation.

Life is good.
Prof Young
 
The original 9mm P bullet was 8 grams, 123.46 grains, usually rounded off to 124 in Imperial, or fudged to 125 grains because divisible by 5 is easier to deal with.
Norma 9mm hardball used to be labeled 123 grains, but now they have gone with the crowd to 124.
 
Jim, I would agree with that rational. The 32ACP, 380ACP and 45ACP all seem to have similar ratios for case and bullet running at similar pressures. They were probably all designed around the "new" bullseye smokeless powder. The contemporary 38 ACP seems to break the trend a bit with its relatively long case for caliber and skippy for 1900 loading of over 1050fps. The U.S. Military certainly appreciated the performance of the black powder 45 Colt in combat and wanted something close in ballistics out of a more compact semi auto. Browning's first offering to the Military was the 38 ACP and the military said, "We like the idea of a semi automatic pistols but can you make ours in 45!" So he designed the 45 ACP around the same basic magazine length as the 38 auto. We know that's why 38 ACP and 45 ACP are two of the best for the 1911 design.

It's those Pesky Germans with their 9mm Luger that broke with some of Browning's basic straight case design concepts with a tapered case body and much higher pressure loading able to drive a similar weight bullet to the 38 ACP at a much higher speed from a shorter case based on the 30 luger blown out to 9mm. I suspect the powder German's developed for the 30 luger was slower burning than bullseye allowing for the development of the higher pressure 9mm luger in Europe.
 
OMG! People! - You're reading WAY too much into the tea leaves.... As the die maker made the dies for these bullets, he formed the shape of the Ogive and the depth of the bullet. Then it got plated or a jacket material was decided upon and LASTLY - it was weighed. This came to 147 grn in this one isolated case. Jacket or plating thickness and the lead alloy may change the weight by 3 to 5 grains but no more in a pistol caliber. That's it...... But to speculate metric or favored bullet weights per caliber is poppy-cock for so many reasons..... You're putting the cart way before the horse. Weight is an outcome moreso than a design goal.
 
Grey Lion,

That may have been so at the end of the American Civil War and forward for a bit, but by the time the 20th century rolled around, everyone from the Scheutzen crowd to the military used ballistic objectives and results to dictate bullet and shell shapes well before cherry and die makers ever saw a work order.

Call Sierra or Berger and see if you can't get someone to walk you through what the birth of a new bullet design looks like.
 
I read books buy Elmer Keith , Skeeter Skelton and others who actually hunted , shot game , were in law enforcement and had experience with what weight bullet worked and what didn't work ... from there I base my decision on a little field testing .
Same as picking a gun powder for reloading ... read about what works and what doesn't work .
This site , others and the internet makes gathering data a lot easier and people talk about how good something works or doesn't work .
Gary
 
I'm late to the party but I'd like to thank Prof for asking the question (I never thought to ask it but once asked it is an intriguing question.)

And I'd like to thank Scorch for his answer and Uncle Nick for confirming it.
 
Post 19 has Unclenick linking the Sierra Palma bullet's weight to the 7.62 M80 bullet maximum weight.

As the military load was most common all over the world, Sierra wanted to make a more accurate bullet. Several British commonwealth competitors shot the Sierra bullet in its first match learning it was the most accurate ever used. I was fortunate to shoot the highest aggregate across 4 days of long range matches.

Some countries have loaded those 155's in their M80 match ammo.
 
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